"How I Roll" - Rotating Plane Sculpture By Paola Pivi At Doris Freedman Plaza In Central Park

The Public Art Fund is presenting a new sculpture by Paola Pivi called "How I Roll" at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park. The piece is a modified six-seat Piper Seneca plane that rotates through 360 degrees while held aloft on its wing tips above the sidewalk. The sculpture is part of a series featuring large machines that have been taken out of their usual context including an upside-down helicopter and an overturned tractor-trailer. The public art installation creates the striking and surreal experience of a familiar object perched in an unexpected location doing a very unfamiliar motion. It looks more dramatic in the presence of cars and horse-drawn carriages on the street right below it, as captured in the photo above. The exhibition continues through August 26, 2012.

Ryan Gander's Sculpture of a Ruin - THE HAPPY PRINCE

On September 15, a new public art was installed near Central Park at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue. The piece is called "The Happy Prince" by sculptor Ryan Gander. The public art will be on display until February next year.

From http://www.nycgovparks.org/art

“High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.” So begins the best-known children’s story by the renowned literary figure, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). It seems fitting that British artist Ryan Gander (b. 1976) has taken inspiration for his first public commission from the tale of an enchanted monument. Here Gander has re-imagined the final, climactic moments of Wilde’s story where the statue is destroyed. Aided by a friendly swallow, the prince has given away all of his jewels and gilding to alleviate the suffering of the city’s poor. No longer impressive to city officials, Wilde’s denuded metal statue is melted down. In Gander’s version, the statue appears to be stone; the fallen swallow and the prince’s indestructible heart lie amidst the rubble. On closer inspection we see that the “ruin” is a single massive object: a sculpture of a ruin. In this way, it functions like a plastic toy ruin, at once descriptive and frankly artificial. Gander’s wry evocation of Wilde’s tale still resonates in our own period of economic inequality. At the same time, it presents a contemporary approach to sculpture, where the role of the public monument remains an open question.